Advanced SEO - Locations vs Service Areas
-
Hi we have a Roofing business that has an office "corporate headquarters" in Lincoln Nebraska- We have also setup service areas or "address locations" in other states and cities we service.
The remote addresses we have are through the UPS store locations giving us an address in the areas- Knowing that Google GMB wants us to list these as service locations and not physical addresses- they have told me directly we are setup okay with separate GMB pages for each location- they say we just need to "hide" the addresses in GMB.
Question: If we "hide" the local address on "all" of the local listings how will this affect the local SEO? It seems like not having a physical office will hurt the local presence- or moreso- having an actual office will help it? Can anyone give input and opinion of setting up "Service Areas" vs "Locations" as it relates to SEO and SERP placement?
Many thanks in advance.
-
Hello Larry,
Thank you for bringing your question to the forum. I'd like to address this in two parts:
- I'm honestly concerned that a Google support rep has given you bad advice. This does happen. P.O. boxes are not considered valid addresses and are expressly cited as ineligible by Google's guidelines which read:
"Use a precise, accurate address and/or service area to describe your business location. P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations are not acceptable."
So, unless I'm missing some aspect of your business model, what the Google rep told you is incorrect. As I've said, this sort of thing does happen, and I'm concerned that your listings could be removed at any time for a guideline violation and this could even possibly prejudice Google against your account, in general, including its legitimate listing in Lincoln. So, I think this is the biggest problem you face right now and in your shoes, if you want a second opinion I would do the following. Go to Google's Forum and title your thread: Gold Product Experts, Did a Google Rep Steer Me Wrong? Then, in the post, share the information about your business listings and repeat the advice that was given to you. Gold Product Experts are Google's top-level forum volunteers and the best source of an educated second opinion when something Google says seems off.
I strongly guess they will point to the guidelines I've indicated and that you will end up removing these listings as ineligible. You're not alone in facing some confusion surrounding this, and I believe a read-through of my recent Moz blog post on the topic of wanting to rank beyond your physical location could help you level up your strategy regarding this common challenge. See: https://moz.com/blog/rank-beyond-location
- Your second question regarding hiding/showing your address is the center of a discussion that's been going on for many years in the local search marketing industry. On the surface of things, hiding your address is not supposed to negatively impact your ability to get your listing ranking well. However, I can personally say that I have seen enough evidence to the contrary to convince me that hiding your address can, indeed, negatively impact your rankings. There are some local SEOs who strongly believe that doing so can even doom the listing. So, know that your question is valid, but that the topic is controversial, with experts frequently stating that hidden addresses do negatively impact the ranking scenario.
I hope this is helpful. If you have any follow-up questions, I hope you'll ask!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Mapping the Google My Business locations I manage?
Is there a way to see all of the business locations I manage on a map, so it's easy to visualize and check? Like a Google Custom map, but I don't want to create a custom map because then I'd be updating information in two places. I thought this would be a built-in feature of Google My Business but I can't seem to find any information about this. Thanks! -Ryan
Local Listings | | RyanD.0 -
Citation Quantity vs Real Links
Hi Everyone, I've got a question about citations. My website is in a niche where there are 3 main competitors - ourselves and two other sites. We have around 300 citation links and around 50 high quality links within our niche from people like bloggers, editorial links within news sites etc. The other two competitors have 900 and 2000 citations each, but nothing else. None of the high quality links we have worked hard over the past year to get. We're generally ranking lower than the other two sites. Should we focus on getting more citations to "catch up"? Until now we haven't because we've been worried a lot of the citations our other competitors are on look spammy, but it seems whatever we do we can't beat them. On the face of it though, we are a better company with a better site and we've got more/better real links, so I'm starting to wonder if citations are holding us back.
Local Listings | | rswhtn0 -
Is SEO effect of NAP Inconsistency A Hoax?
Is the effect of NAP inconsistency on search rankings basically a myth to justify business citation management services? I've been doing SEO for over 10 years but only recently started doing local businesses. I have yet to find any sort of published study that clearly shows a significant ranking effect by correcting an inconsistent NAP on any business directory site other than Google and Bing Business Listings. In fact, the publishers of any such articles claiming NAP inconsistency has a significant negative SEO effect are almost always businesses or people that are charging for such services. Gee, could they be a little biased? Obviously if you have an incorrect address that is far from the actual address, correcting it will help your ranking (think 3-pack) in the area close to your business but that's not really the type of ranking effect I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a missing suite #, or an old address that is 1/2 block away from the new address but still the same phone number, or identical address but different phone (a toll free versus a local number). That kind of stuff. Of course you don't want to have an incorrect address or non-working phone number on places like Superpages, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc, but does anyone know of any place I can find good factual proof that having inconsistent NAPs on these sites has any significant effect on rankings? I'm sure some of the big SEO companies have the data to determine the effect. Or is this more of a "tin foil hat" / herd / OCD mentality on this subject that no one can prove (or disprove?)
Local Listings | | MrSem0 -
Relocating a Business location on Google My Business
Hello, One of our clinics is moving a couple of miles away from it's current location. Does anyone know the proper steps to take to make the change in Google My Business. I know I can go in and edit all the details, but what becomes of the former listing? If someone were to search by our name and the former street address, is Google going to be smart enough to deliver our new location as the search result? Also, I know there's a Mark Permanently Closed feature, but that's not exactly true. That location didn't "close," it relocated so I'm assuming I should stay away from that feature. Thanks in advance for any insight. Erik
Local Listings | | SmileMoreSEO0 -
Multiple locations for business displaying in search
I have two locations for my business but now if I search for the term "car medics" on Google search only one of the locations display now. I'm not exactly sure when this change happened but If you refer to my August screenshot http://puu.sh/lACx7/6329ef916e.png compared to today's screenshot http://puu.sh/lABPS/415fa451c1.png. The search results used to display both locations which is exactly what I wanted. How can I have this corrected? I don't want people to think I only serve at one location. I specifically made two location pages instead of listing both on a single contact page on my website to delineate I have two locations. Yes I understand both locations will come up if I check Google Maps but I want the same thing for on Google search as well.
Local Listings | | FPK0 -
Different Search Results Depending On Location
Hello all, I was talking to a client earlier this week and they were telling me that they were not ranking fora desired keyword term. When I, however, ran a Google search for the keyword term in question, the client's website was showing a ranking on my end. We are both located in California. I'm in Southern California and they're in Northern California, but I don't think that should make a significant difference should it? Anyway, I've never run into such a quandary before and am curious to know if any of you out there can help me better understand why we're receiving different search results. Any and all insights are welcomed and appreciated.
Local Listings | | maxcarnage0 -
How is this Ge Factory Service ranking like this?
Recently I was doing some research on "appliance repair" for a new client and I ran into some listings that are ranking locally on the 1st page without barely any backlinks or citations. I am wondering how they are doing this. I under stand since they are a GE company maybe this is why but there is not even no backlinks from the GE main site. This Ge Factory website is a pr0 so how is it ranking hundreds of listings without almost any citations?After searching Google I found over 10k listings for "GE Factory Service". How are they doing this? As I understand only Franchise listings are allowed to be posted Nationwide. After investigation I came to the conclusion that GE does not offer any Franchise Opportunities for their repair service. So isn't this in violation of the terms and conditions? These listings all have the address hidden since these are not storefronts. I have checked many listings and they are ranking for most cities I search including:Atlanta, San Diego, Dallas, Tucson,phoenix.Does anyone have any ideas how these listings with virtually no SEO? Any feedback is appreciated thanks
Local Listings | | bajaseo0 -
Adding multiple locations business to directories
We have multiple locations business.
Local Listings | | VicMark
Adding each location business info to directories. There are same services and everything for each location. Should we keep the same description for all listings or different for each location?
Should we indicate Home Page URL (with 800 number, no address in footer) or location URL?0